The Outsiders Rewritten: Darry's Story (Extended Chapters)
by theCurtisLittleSister
Summary: Two extended chapters from my first FanFic "The Outsiders Rewritten: Darry's Story." Thanks to FrankElza for the nice chapter-by-chapter reviews on my first Fic! Enjoy! Stay gold, do it for Johnny! -Rated T again for swearing, third genre is Hurt/Comfort if you like
1. (Extra) Chapter One

(Extra) Chapter One

The morning of the hearing was quiet at our house. Steve and Two-Bit made their way over early for breakfast. Sodapop and Ponyboy were in the bathroom getting ready. I'd got up before anybody else to cook up breakfast and get ready myself. I hadn't got much sleep to be honest, and whenever I'd gotten up to check on Soda and Pony, something I'd started doing a lot since Pony came home, one of them had always been up, too nervous to sleep.

I stood in front of the mirror in my room, the same as I'd been the night of the rumble. I was wearing one of Dad's old jackets over my best shirt, and I'd spent the last half hour desperately trying to run a comb through the cowlick. The hospital people had strongly advised me to make sure my brothers looked presentable, but I knew we all had to look presentable if I stood any chance of getting the judge to let me keep custody of the two of them.

Nobody was talking out in the kitchen over breakfast. I threw the comb aside and went out to eat with the gang. Ponyboy hadn't touched his plate. Sodapop was trying to coax him into eating a couple bites. I raised an eyebrow as I sliced myself a piece of cake and sat down on Pony's other side. "Let him alone, Soda, if he doesn't want to eat. Ponyboy, go get ready if you're not hungry."

Pony quietly got up, dropped his piece of cake on Two-Bit's plate, put his plate and clean fork in the sink, and left the kitchen. The door to his room shut.

Two-Bit glanced in shock at his plate, then around the table at all of us. "Since when does that kid share food?" he asked, poking at Pony's cake.

"Shares with you, you mean?" I muttered.

"Since when does he not even eat his cake?" Soda asked, looking worried as he stared down the hall after our baby brother. "He hasn't been eating anything, not since-"

"Yeah. I know, Pepsi-Cola. We just..." I dragged my hand through my hair, immediately wishing I hadn't, after all that time in front of the mirror trying to comb it down into place. "...We gotta let him alone, let him come around… he'll get over it… and he can't keep starvin' himself forever. He's gonna have to eat at some point, or we're gonna have to force-feed him, Soda, like a little kid. Force-feed him if that's what it takes, got that?" Soda cracked a grin, just like I knew he would, and I felt a little better. "Steve, Two-Bit, leave a couple pieces in case he's hungry later on."

The boys finished up their cake and left to get ready. I started hurrying with the dishes. We had an hour and a half until the court hearing started, but we had a half hour drive out, and the hospital people had told me it was better to get there early anyway. Always better to get there early.

Sodapop came scrambling out of his and Ponyboy's room, his hair greased back, wearing dark jeans and a button-up shirt he'd got out of my closet. It looked like the one Mom had found for my freshman year portrait.

 _His hair was greased back..._

"Soda!"

"Yeah?"

"What'd you do to your hair?"

"Oh." He ran a hand carefully along the side of his head, his fingers lightly touching his hair. "Golly, does it look bad…?"

"Why the hell did you grease your hair back?"

"Does it look bad?"

"We're going to court!" I snapped.

"Well… I always put grease in my hair."

"Pony!" I hollered, pushing past Soda and going down the hall.

He was in the bathroom, the door half-opened, and when he looked into the hall, I saw his hair was greased back.

"Damnit you two! We're going to court, we're supposed to look decent!" I shouted, pushing the door all the way open and knocking the bottle of hair grease out of Pony's hand.

"Golly Darry, it's just hair," Two-Bit laughed from the living room, where he'd snuck another piece of chocolate cake and was flicking through cartoon channels on the television.

Ponyboy looked funny when he said that. He didn't say anything, just muttered, "Sorry, Darry," and pushed past me back into the bathroom. Soda followed him in and murmured something next to his ear.

I waited in the living room until the two of them came out, then breathed in deep. "When we're at that hearing, just remember, keep your mouths shut no matter what. No matter what the Socs say, no matter what the judge says to them, just keep your mouths shut, because you're gonna get a turn to talk, and you can tell them the truth if the Socs lie. You hear me?"

I remembered, the night of the rumble, which I tried hard never to think about anymore, when I'd been telling Pony and Soda as we walked to the vacant lot to blow at the first sign of trouble, warning them about the fuzz. I looked to Soda, half-waiting for him to make some stupid wisecrack, telling me I sure didn't need an amplifier, but he just sighed softly and nodded. "Yeah, we will. Right, Pony?" He elbowed Ponyboy gently.

I looked to Pony, and it wasn't until Soda elbowed him a second time that he managed to nod.

"Alright. It'll- it'll all be okay. We'll be okay, we've got a case. That Soc Cherry is testifying for us, and they can't split us up after what happened in- what happened in Windrixville, with those little kids. We'll be okay."

I looked over my shoulder to Steve and Two-Bit as I said those last words, because when I'd said that, I'd meant them too. Two-Bit was stuffing down his cake and waving his fork around as he laughed at his cartoons, but Steve, who'd gone to sit next to my brothers on the sofa, nodded a little to me, his dark eyes all of a sudden not so cocky.

I told my brothers to grab their coats, Two-Bit to turn off the television, and everybody to get to the truck.

The courthouse lot was just about empty, but the cars parked there were definitely owned by Socs. I pulled in and parked the truck as far from them as I could.

Our hearing was the only one slotted for that day. We walked straight into the courtroom and took five seats at the front of the rows of benches, on the opposite side of the aisle from the Socs. There were five of them too. Their parents were all sitting in the back of the courtroom: we'd had to walk past them to get to our seats. I'd seen the way most of them had watched us as we'd walked on by them, at least the ones who'd bothered looking our way when we'd come in. They looked at us the way most people look at greasers. Cherry smiled a little at us as we took our seats. Ponyboy didn't look over her way, or at me and Sodapop as we took spots on either side of him, trying to grin confidently. He stared at his lap, a tired look on his face. Soda pushed his hair back affectionately, and he grinned a little, but immediately stopped as a bailiff stepped into the room and looked right to us.

"Would all here please rise for our honorable judge."

"Get up," I hissed through my teeth to the gang. The judge came in and set a small brown briefcase on the bench where he sat in the front of the room. The bailiff waved for us to sit down again. Ponyboy was shaking next to me. I leaned my leg against his.

"I call Randy Adderson to the stand."

They questioned Randy for a little bit, just getting the details on that night in the park. His buddies went up one by one after that and told the judge the same thing. Then they got Cherry up there to testify against the Socs, and she started from the Nightly Double to the morning the fuzz showed up at her place to tell her Bob had been killed. She was crying as she talked, like she'd been at the vacant lot that night, but she was holding herself together real well in front of the judge. Soda smiled at her as she slowly turned to go back to her seat, and she wiped at her eyes and smiled back.

Then the judge called me and Sodapop to the stand. Ponyboy shut his eyes tight and pulled his leg away from mine. I got up and Soda followed close behind me to the stand, his eyes wide, but his chin tipped high. The judge looked closely at each of us. "The two of you were friends with Dallas Winston, am I right?"

He was looking at me when he said Dally's name. I nodded, tipping my chin up to look him dead in the eyes. "Yessir." I heard Soda echo me, his voice shaking a little, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder at Pony, his eyes still huge. The judge looked at Pony too before asking, "Was he a good friend of yours?"

He didn't even look at Sodapop: his eyes were straight on mine. "Yessir," I said again, feeling Soda move close to my side, his arm touching my ribs, his cheek pressed into the sleeve of my jacket.

That was it. We were released from the stand. Soda jumped down and ran back to Ponyboy. Steve muttered "Good job" in his ear. Two-Bit was grinning widely as I sat down, glancing over at my brothers.

And then they called Ponyboy.

Soda looked ready to bawl, but I think he was more nervous than upset. Ponyboy made his way to the stand, his hands shaking. He held them at his sides as the judge started his questioning. Soda moved into Pony's seat and was tensed up against my side.

"Do you like living with your brother Darrel, Ponyboy?"

The four of us leaned forward to hear Pony's soft voice as he answered. "Yeah- I mean yessir, I like living with Darry…"

"That's good, good. Do you like school, Ponyboy?"

"Yessir, I like school."

"And what types of grades do you make in school?"

"Good ones, sir."

He went on and asked him some more about school, if he had some real nice friends, how he did in track, and then released him from the stand with a dry grin, telling him to quit chewing on his fingernails.

Ponyboy came slowly back to us and sat down. I was dying to grab him and Soda up in my arms and hold them tight, walk them out of the courtroom without looking back, but I just sighed and leaned back next to Pony, waiting for the verdict.

"...Ponyboy Curtis is acquitted of all charges involved in this case. Custody of him and Sodapop Curtis remains legally with Darrel Curtis… this case is closed."


	2. (Extra) Chapter Two

(Extra) Chapter Two

"What's the sweat about my schoolwork? I'll have to get a job as soon as I get out of school anyway. Look at Soda, he's doing okay, and he dropped out. You can just lay off!" Ponyboy screamed, his eyes narrowed in anger, his body shaking a little.

"You're not going to drop out- listen. With your brains and grades you could get a scholarship and we could put you through college." I wasn't screaming as loud as he'd been, but my voice wasn't soft either, like Soda's would've been. Or like Dad's would've been, for that matter. "But schoolwork's not the point. You're living in a vacuum, Pony, and you're going to have to cut it out." _Careful how you say these next words._ "Johnny and Dallas were our buddies too, but you don't just stop living because you lose someone. I thought you knew that by now. You don't quit!" I hadn't been looking at Soda, even though he'd still been in the room with us. Pony hadn't looked his way either, he was glaring furiously up at me. Now he had a blank, tough look on his face, the way we all tried to look around the fuzz or other greasers, a look he hardly ever had. I went straight on. "And anytime you don't like the way I'm running things you can get out."

"You'd like that wouldn't you? You'd like me just to get out! Well it's not that easy, is it Soda?" Now Pony was looking over at Soda, and when I did, I saw how he looked: his face paled, his bottom lip trembling, his eyes huge. I felt my own eyes get wide. "Don't- oh you guys, why can't you-" and then he went flying out the door.

I saw an envelope on the ground next to where he'd been sitting on the sofa hearing us fight. It hit me then as I picked it up.

I said it out loud more for myself than for Pony. "It's the letter he wrote Sandy- returned unopened." I looked at Ponyboy as it all came together. "When Sandy went to Florida… it wasn't Soda, Ponyboy… he told me he loved her… but I guess she didn't love him like he thought she did… because it wasn't him." I kept going. "He wanted to marry her anyway, but she just left." I felt like he had to know, because nobody ever seemed to really know what was going on with Sodapop. He never seemed to have any trouble, any problems. It always seemed to be just me and Ponyboy with the problems, and the problems were always with each other. _Golly,_ I thought, _Sodapop was always there when we needed him, whenever Pony had that damn nightmare, whenever he was mad that I'd hollered at him, and he was there that week Pony was in Windrixville, even though he was as torn up as the rest of us were… and Sandy had just left that same week..._

Pony didn't move. "You don't have to draw me a picture." He was starting to realize what all was going on too.

Now I was confused. Pony hadn't known anything? "Why didn't he tell you?" I asked him. "I didn't think he'd tell Steve or Two-Bit, but I thought he told you everything."

It seemed to me that Pony was asking himself the same thing. "Maybe he tried..."

I felt as awful as Pony looked then. I remembered the night I'd sat with Soda in their room as he cried in my lap, screaming and crying as he told me what'd happened. I remembered sitting out on the porch when he'd fell asleep, trying to remember the last time he'd ever done something like that with me. With Ponyboy. Hell, even with Steve or Two-Bit. "He cried every night that week you were gone. Both you and Sandy in the same week." I threw the envelope back on the sofa. "Come on, let's go after him."

Sodapop wasn't a fast runner, but he could keep on for a long time. Ponyboy and I tailed him all the way to the park, and even though Soda had a good head start, we were slowly gaining. He wasn't giving up. Ponyboy pulled in front of me after a few blocks.

"Circle around and cut him off, I'll stay right behind him," I called after another block.

 _How could we have let it get to this point?_ I thought as I watched Ponyboy round the corner to the edge of the park.

I got to the edge of the park just as Pony burst out of the trees and tackled Soda from behind, sending the two of them crashing down. I dropped down between them as they sat up, gasping for breath. Soda swiped grass off the front of his shirt and panted, "You should have gone out for football instead of track."

"Where did you think you were going?"

"I don't know… it's just… I can't stand to hear ya'll fight… sometimes, I just have to get out… or… it's like I'm the middleman in a tug o' war and I'm being split in half, ya dig…?"

My heart was pounding as I looked quickly to Ponyboy. He was looking sick and sad. Soda went on, his eyes wide and full of tears. "...I mean, I can't take sides. It'd be a lot easier if I could, but I see both sides… Darry yells too much and tries too hard and takes everything too serious, and Ponyboy, you don't think enough, you don't realize all Darry's giving up just to give you a chance he missed out on. He could have stuck you in a home somewhere and worked his way through college, Ponyboy, I'm telling you the truth- I dropped out because I'm dumb. I really did try in school, but you saw my grades… look, I'm happy working in a gas station with cars. You'd never be happy doing something like that… and Darry, you ought to try to understand him more, and quit bugging him about every little mistake he makes… he feels things differently than you do…" He was begging me- us -now as he talked, the tears slowly starting to fall. "Golly you two, it's bad enough having to listen to it… but when you start trying to get me to take sides… we're all we got left, we ought to be able to stick together against everything- if we don't have each other, we don't have anything. If you don't have anything, you end up like Dallas- and I don't mean dead either… I mean like he was before… and that's worse than dead… please… don't fight anymore…"

I had it then. Soda was too good to get upset over us not paying any attention to his problems: he got upset hearing us fight, and maybe that was his biggest problem. I nodded and said softly, "Sure little buddy, we're not going to fight anymore."

Ponyboy was looking ready to bawl. Soda grinned at him through his own tears and said, "Hey Ponyboy- don't you start crying too… one bawl-baby in the family's enough."

"I'm not crying…"

I watched the two of them grinning through their crying, Soda offering Pony a punch on the arm, and I knew I lucked out choosing to get stuck with the two of them. "No more fights, okay Ponyboy?"

"Okay."

Soda got up. He'd stopped crying and was grinning his usual happy-go-lucky grin. "Well, I'm cold. How about going home?"

Pony jumped up after him and said, "Race you," and the three of us took off running for the house in the dark, not saying anything, just running. It was a bit of a race the first few blocks, with Pony leading and me and Soda right behind him, but when we got to the lot at the corner of our street, Pony slowed and we tied in our yard. I watched him close as we went up to the house and saw he wasn't breathing hard or sweating, and I realized he hadn't really been racing. I grinned to myself as the three of us separated for the night: Soda flopped down on the sofa and dropped off in front of the television, Pony went looking for something to read, and I went into my room. I knew Ponyboy wasn't going to find anything in our house that was new- he'd read every damn book in the house at least a million times. I remembered the Gone with the Wind book on the table in his room and wondered if he was going to ever pick it up again.

As I was getting into bed with a piece of paper and a pen to start another grocery list, I looked through the door and saw Pony sitting at his desk with Gone with the Wind, the book in one hand and what looked like a note in the other hand. I felt like maybe I should've gone into him, but I stopped myself. I sighed and started writing out my list.

I heard Ponyboy talking on the telephone a couple minutes later, asking if something could be longer. He paused and then hung up, and I heard him coming back down the hall to his room. Then it was quiet again, except for the sound of Soda snoring out in the living room.

When I looked through the door again Ponyboy was at his desk, Gone with the Wind next to his arm, writing. He still looked different with his hair blonde, and he was still skinny as a stick, but I knew he'd be okay now.

And we'd be okay, now.


End file.
